In many commercial aircraft meteorological data at waypoints along an aircraft flight path may be considered for determining an estimated time of arrival and fuel burn during an aircraft's flight. For example, a flight management system (FMS) might consider wind direction, wind speed, and temperature data uploaded to the FMS from a ground station via a communications system while the aircraft is in flight or input by the pilot.
While the amount of the available meteorological data is large and may include multiple points along or near the aircraft flight path, there are practical limits to the real-time use of this large amount of data. For example, the FMS may be limited in the number of data points where weather data may be entered. Typically flight path data is provided to the FMS as the start point, the end point, and perhaps one or a few enroute waypoints. Such constraints in the data can limit the accuracy of FMS trajectory forecasts based on the data. Another practical limitation is the relatively high cost of transmitting the data to the aircraft, which is currently done by transmission over a subscription-based, proprietary communications system such as Airline Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS).